This is a plug heavy post because, thanks to Jem, I have rekindled my love for the blogging community. It wasn’t until the second of September (curse GMT+10) that I picked up on Jem’s blog-every-day-in-September challenge (Septemblog). I decided to take part just to see how I would go. I missed day one, and I remember actually thinking about blogging that day but being too tired to do so – before I actually found out about Septemblog.

In the past I didn’t like blogging every day, instead blogging every second day because I wanted people to pay attention to my latest post. But gone are those days. I recall writing multiple times that I write for myself because I enjoy it. I think that blogging every day was a good personal challenge because it really felt like I was writing because I wanted to do this challenge, rather than just blogging because I wanted to churn out regular posts.

I had the usual Fashion Friday and 2 minutes and 40 seconds posts, but here are a few things worth noting about my experience with Septemblog:

• I was doing well in the first week or two.
• I keep a list of post ideas so this was a fantastic opportunity to go through that list and get some things off it.
• Working 9am–6pm sure kept me busy, so sometimes I tried to write something super quickly in the last three hours of the day.
• If I didn’t finish it by midnight, I finished it and then backdated the post… this happened towards the end of the month, in the past week… Hey, at least I started before midnight. :P
• This is the second time (that I can remember) that I blogged every day for a month. I think it was in 2008 that I tried – those posts aren’t in my post archive though, it was from my old blog when I was using another system and I didn’t move the posts across.
• Apart from day one and my backdating cheating (which I still think kinda counts since it’s still before midnight somewhere in the world), I did blog every day.

Although those are just general comments, there are specific posts that felt like fresh or refreshing additions.

Tara and I launched our Timeless Thoughts linkup, and I wrote about garage/yard sales, which a lot of people loved reflecting on. Look out for the next post from me this Saturday as I’ll be hosting it for October! :D

Shut up and dance was about the Walk The Moon concert that Nick and I went to. I was typing that up on my phone in the car on the way home! I haven’t written much about concerts lately so that was nice to do as a bit of a quick recap.

Devon Cafe, not a devon cafe was a post that I didn’t really intend to be humorous but it was, and Nick liked the way I wrote it. I used to write a lot about eateries I used to visit, including a lot of photos, but I hadn’t done that in a while.

I happily squeezed in two Live simply posts, Why I decided to own less than 20 physical books and One handbag is all you need. I didn’t mean for the handbag one to be so opinionated but I realised I was onto something halfway through writing it, which wrapped up the post nicely. I was originally only going to write about how I had many bags and now don’t have many at all. :P

I didn’t intend on writing I remember the exact moment I fell in love. but it sorta just came out as I wrote it, you know, one of those random days when I just get wound up in my own happy feelings. The same goes for Hilariously affectionate things – I have always had a mental list of things that I do because I love Nick and that I wouldn’t have ever done for anyone else, and it was nice to write that out. And kites was a poem I sneakily wove into my posts because I didn’t feel like writing, but it was another of those poems that was inspired by Nick.

I thank Holly immensely for inviting me to do my 8 photos of happiness because it was a lovely way for me to go back and find some of the photos from the past that really made me smile.

I’m pretty happy, too, that throughout September I read a lot of blog posts and commented on a lot of my friends’ (both old and new!) blogs. I always read Holly’s posts (in fact, her blog found its way to my most visited sites in my browser haha) but I think I found more time to leave comments this time. I recently made friends with Ariane and did an interview with her just yesterday. By way of Tara, I also found Jae’s blog, and I get a feeling I’m going to enjoy reading more of her posts. I also saw Manda churn out posts daily, which was nice because I missed seeing a lot from her. She also wrote a couple of short-and-sweet posts in a similar fashion to myself, and even though she may have just been doing it to achieve the goal of blogging every day, I love those short-and-sweet posts that are just a casual drop-in to say hi.

Fashion Friday proceeded as normal, with Nick using my new camera to photograph Fragola dolce. Clearly my enjoyment in learning Italian this month has shone through.

Who knew a review on an envelope company would make the cut, too? Haha!

I wrote about my new iPhone and of course my new camera. Normally I am a bit ‘whatever’ about blogging about new gadgets, but Septemblog was somehow an excuse to write about anything. I can tell by the amount of discussion on my posts that people are obviously going to be interested in new toys. I suppose that is why people love unboxing videos, hauls, and posts where they get to see people’s stuff. I saw a couple of bag posts from Jem herself, and Adastra, like, I think I am quoting John Oliver here – holy fucking shit!

This goes out to those people who think they write about boring stuff and think that people aren’t interested in their lives. C’mon guys. We’re friends because we know about each other and even the mundane stuff is super interesting because that’s what makes a person a person, and what with all the global connections, of course someone is going to be intrigued by the life of someone else living in another country, even if you do write about something as seemingly boring as what is in your bag. :)

I also snuck in a techy web dev post about some WordPress function that Nick helped me fix. I didn’t think it would appeal to too many of my readers but I really intrigued Holly and Liz. That also goes to show how much people like reading blogs. Jem wrote a recap and mentioned that her blog had some increased engagement just from writing more often. I probably have to say the same. I had a couple of new visitors and as I was replying to comments on my posts I realised how many people were interested in things I wrote.

I also finished up at my job yesterday, I felt it was good to end at the end of the month, end of the quarter really. Pretty heartbreaking because everyone there was so lovely. I felt sad reading all the messages on my farewell card.

Well, anyway. It was awesome reading everyone else’s posts as well. When you have lots to write, it’s nice to have lots to read. I’d definitely do this again at some point in the future. 8D